In conjunction with CHI 2016 in San Jose, California, a workshop will be held to discuss the rapidly growing DIY Health and Wellbeing domain. Maker and hacker culture has driven advances in diabetes technology and the development of other bespoke assistive technologies. There is potential for growth in this field to other health and wellbeing domains, and many HCI concerns and questions are starting to arise.

A keynote by Brandon Arbiter of Tidepool.org will outline advances in DIY diabetes, and short introductions by attendees will follow along with a show-and-tell of DIY Health and Wellbeing technologies and participant demos. Group discussions will occur on topics that have been chosen and developed by attendees prior to the workshop.

Submissions are welcome on topics related to DIY health & wellbeing and HCI, including: case studies or demos of hacking health or wellbeing devices; reports of on-going research on DIY health or wellbeing; reflections on the opportunities of patient-led technology projects; studies of grassroots maker communities for health and wellbeing; and, position papers on challenges and opportunities for HCI research in DIY heath and wellbeing.

Four-page position papers in Extended Abstract format should be submitted to Easychair by January 8th 2016 at 5pm GMT (papers submitted by December 15th 2015 will be considered for early acceptance). At least one author of each accepted position paper must attend the workshop and all participants must register for both the workshop and for at least one day of the CHI 2016 conference.

CORRECTED TIME: An AMIA webinar by Dr. Dominic Furniss from UCL is scheduled for Thursday 12th March 2015, at 1pm-2.30pm EDT (5pm-6.30pm GMT for those in the UK).

In this webinar I will propose a framework to facilitate the application of Distributed Cognition to investigate the design and use of medical devices in context. Distributed Cognition concerns itself with how artefacts, people and representations are coordinated to impact the propagation and transformation of information in systems. By evaluating the information processing properties of sociotechnical systems we are able to see the strengths and weaknesses of systems, and make design recommendations. Therefore, this should be of interest to researchers in HCI, human factors and informatics.

Distributed Cognition has promised much but some have criticised that it does not have the analytic support to aid its application, which has hindered more widespread adoption. DiCoT (Distributed Cognition for Teamwork) responded to this by proposing that an analysis should proceed by building five interdependent models of the sociotechnical system: information flow, artefact, physical, social and evolutionary. Each model has associated principles to help focus on information processing properties of the system.

This webinar introduces DiCoT-CL, which is a framework that adds concentric layers to DiCoT. DiCoT-CL has the user-device dyad at its centre, it then moves out to evaluate the device in its immediate context, then at the ward level, then at the hospital level. We find the scope of this model reveals performance issues in micro-interactions at the sharp-end, e.g. a lack of salience of an icon in the device’s display, and macro-interactions at the blunt-end, e.g. consequences of how a management committee have decided to configure the device. We assert that it is more important to be able to account for these distributed interactions as devices become more interconnected through networks and influenced by different management functions.

The paper on which this webinar is based has recently been published in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics:

We are pleased to announce that the second Fieldwork for Healthcare volume, “Fieldwork for Healthcare: Guidance for Investigating Human Factors in Computing Systems,” is now available through Amazon. This book builds on the first volume on case studies by synthesising guidance in this area.

There is much to look forward to in 2015, including the release of our Guidance Book (Volume 2) in print early next year. We’ve literally just heard from the publishers that it is now available online here! We’ll send more details about that volume through after Christmas.

We wish you all the best over the holiday season and a happy new year!

Congratulations to the winners who will be receiving a copy of the book in the mail. Thank you to everyone who signed up to get news from our network of academics and stay tuned for the second book to be released in early 2015, “Fieldwork for Healthcare: Guidance for investigating human factors in computer systems”

Join our email list or follow our website to win one of five copies of Volume 1 ‘Fieldwork for Healthcare’ in order to celebrate the launch of Volume 2 early next year!

We’re developing a network of people that are interested in Fieldwork for Healthcare from a human factors, HCI, informatics, ethnographic, user experience, ergonomic, design and usability related perspectives. We have run two CHI workshops, published a book, have another book forthcoming, and there is talk of a journal special issue and another workshop in the pipeline. We want to broaden our network and reach out to more researchers and practitioners who want to hear about and get involved in future activities. To help us achieve this, Morgan & Claypool Publishers have given us five copies of the new book to give away, all you have to do to enter the competition is to join our email list to receive future announcements.

What book are you talking about?
We’ve recently published a new book titled, “Fieldwork for Healthcare: Case studies investigating human factors in computing systems.” This is the first of two volumes: volume one contains 12 case studies, and volume two contains synthesised guidance on doing fieldwork for healthcare. Hard copies of the volume 1 can be purchased through Amazon and digital copies can be downloaded through Morgan & Claypool Publishers.

Why should I take part?
– Win one of 5 copies of the new book ‘Fieldwork for Healthcare’ Volume 1
– Be the first to find out about Volume 2
– Find out about special issues, workshops and other research related activities

How do I enter?
Simply go to our website and sign-up to receive news items by email, found on the right hand side of the page. If you have already registered and follow our blog, then you’ll be automatically entered into the prize draw.

Prize draw dates
The prize draw will take place on Friday 1st August 2014 and winners will be announced on the blog shortly after that.

Eggs, bacon, sausage and spam? [MontyPython Spam sketch]
We won’t be emailing often (only 4 posts so far this year), so this shouldn’t upset diets that aren’t keen on spam. You can easily de-register from the email list after the competition has finished.

It will also be available for purchase at CHI 2014 in Toronto where you can also pre-register for the second volume, “Fieldwork for Healthcare: Guidance Investigating Human Factors in Computing Systems.”